I have a problem with appearances.  Here's the sequence of events:

1. Modeled a whole library full of various sheet metal parts.

2. Applied custom colors (appearances) to some faces (not bodies or parts) within each part file. (later learned this was a mistake).

3. Build assemblies using the sheet metal parts.

4. In these assemblies, there are various Assembly Cuts made to some of the sheet metal parts.

5. Any parts even partially intersected by the Assembly Cuts lose the appearances that were applied to faces.  The parts revert to their "base" appearance (galvanized in most cases).

6. As a result, my drawings (shaded) look terrible (see attached image).

7. I can apply appearance overrides at the top assembly, which fixes everything quickly.  The drawing looks great.

8. Then save (ePDM vault), check in.

9. Reopen assembly and/or drawing, and all of the appearance overrides are lost.  I'm right back where I started.  So I have to reapply all the overrides just to print a "clean" drawing.  Then, everything is lost again.  I have to rinse and repeat this process every time I revise a drawing, which is quite often.

Q: What am I doing wrong?  Why don't overrides "stick" in the assembly?  What use are they if they don't stick?

FYI - I believe if I had applied the appearances at the part level, rather than just some faces, the assembly cuts wouldn't cause trouble, because the color would go "clear to the bone."  But that would not reflect the intent or actual appearance of the parts.

Attached image:  All the galvanized parts should be gray.  The galvanized ones were gray until the assembly cut.  (I was told this itself is a bug).  Appearance overrides in this assembly fixes everything, but only temporarily.  Save, close, reopen, and you're back to square one.

Using SW 2014 x64 SP4.0